Does Hazing Work? - Businessweek

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While the need for this sort of forced assimilation is easy to see in a
group that exists at the margins of mainstream society—a cult, say, or
an a cappella group—it is harder to see the necessity on a professional
football team. Isn’t the desire to win—and collect a paycheck—enough to
keep people committed to the organization’s success? Keating suggests
that hazing persists in places like the NFL partly to counteract the
influence of money and individual acclaim; hazing is a means to keep
players committed to the team, rather than to their own glory. She
remembers hearing an American general talk about how he saw incidences
of hazing in the military rise in the 1960s, a decade where mainstream
culture was consumed with celebrations of individualism.